


Averting a Vision

by JediDryad



Series: February Fluff: 28 Ways Luke and Mara Get it Together at last. [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Hand of Thrawn Duology - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff, But just a little, F/M, Internal Monologue, Short & Sweet, february fluff, slightly smarter couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29109669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediDryad/pseuds/JediDryad
Summary: It is from Karrde's perspective that we are told Luke agrees to go to Nirauan to rescue Mara, and it is totally glossed over that he spends a stretch of time alone on her ship to get there. How might spending days (I've guessed nine) on her ship impact the way Luke thinks of Mara, and how might he proceed after all that thinking?
Relationships: Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker
Series: February Fluff: 28 Ways Luke and Mara Get it Together at last. [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129439
Comments: 13
Kudos: 41





	Averting a Vision

He’d tried to ignore the vision. Well, ignore might be the wrong word, but he tried to push it out of the centre of his mind and give it the weight the Force seemed to be granting it. It had been a brief image in a whirlwind mosaic of possibilities. He knew not everything he had seen would come to pass, and he knew that focusing on only one part of a vision could have consequences.

He clenched and released his right hand. Severe consequences.

So he set it aside and tried to believe that the path he was following was the right one, that he could not control everyone’s destiny. He could only control his own and even that was not entirely up to him.

It got harder though. 

The vision of Mara lying dead in some underground stream would pop into his head at the worst moments: while he was flying, while he was meditating, while he was trying to sleep.

And he knew these were not new visions. This was a memory of that brief glimpse, burned into his brain like a flashbulb. That he kept seeing it was his brain refusing to let it go as it should.

As he had learned to let Mara go.

There had been a time when he’d imagined perhaps Mara might be interested in a future with him. He’d wondered if she would respond positively to an invitation to dinner, to an invitation to spending time together that wasn’t punctuated with blaster fire.

It had been a ridiculous idea, he reminded himself. Mara had no reason to even like him. He had unwittingly tortured her for years. It was amazing she could even stand to be in the same space as him for brief periods of time. And they had been brief over the years, as brief as she could make them. He had noticed.

He could hardly blame her and she certainly wasn't the first person he’d fallen for who hadn’t returned an interest. Those in the Dune Sea region who weren’t married by 19, weren’t generally single for lack of trying. Rejection was so common as to become a norm.

So he knew better than to push. He knew better than to meddle and tamper with the mutual respect they’d built. He liked being a good ally for her. He overflowed with joy when he sensed she might like it too, but he carefully kept that to himself.

He let her be her, and he stayed himself, by himself for the most part.

As he would have to continue to do, he knew, unless the Force provided him with some opportunity to intervene.

And then it did.

He was stunned when he ran into Karrde and even more so when the call came in as he stood in the other man’s office.

The memory of the vision rose before him again as he heard Shirlee Faughn’s voice over Karrde’s comm system explaining where Mara had been when her signal had stopped. She’d played a message that ended with a sickening thud, and his inner eye had gone white with terror even as he’d muttered responses he didn’t remember to Karrde.

The vision returned in full in that moment and he saw himself landing on a planet he knew she was on.

“I’ll go.” He blurted out, certain it was complete non sequitur, the sort of shift that would be cause for careful questioning had it come from anyone other than the galaxy’s eccentric hermit of a jedi master.

And even Karrde had blinked at his about-face before quickly helping him make arrangements. They’d sent him out on Mara’s ship. He would have balked were it not for the urgency that was taking over his mind. He would agree to anything that would get him there faster. Now that he knew where he had to be, everything in him demanded he get there immediately. 

So it was that he found himself alone for nine days in hyperspace, on Mara’s ship, without her.

He tried not to wander. He stayed out of her stateroom, sleeping in a spare bunk around midship. He kept his travels to the cockpit, galley, and fresher; but even so, he could feel her presence in every inch of the ship. There was a careful efficiency to the space that he appreciated. Like Mara, her space seemed to calm him - unless he thought too much about the vision that was the reason he was there in the first place.

It was a strange journey. He knew that the Jade’s Fire was Mara’s home more than any of the places she’d stayed over the years. He felt like an intruder. He was in her private space without her invitation or permission. Karrde was right that it was a logical choice, and he clearly had the appropriate authorizations, but Luke expected Mara would not necessarily agree to let him in here. 

She’d rarely invited him on board, and he knew he was glimpsing things she had been keeping from him: like a space clearly designed for sparring with a lightsaber and remote, a corner that looked suspiciously like it was used for meditation, and a number of data discs with labels matching files Tionne had acquired through a source she’d never disclosed.

Mara had never wanted him to teach her after Wayland, but apparently she still wanted to learn, and she certainly hadn’t wanted him to know that. He feared how she would respond to learning where he’d been. 

And then he wished she would berate him for his intrusion, because a Mara who angrily lectured him was alive and conscious, unlike his vision.

Finally, as he sat there in the middle of her world, consumed with her welfare, Luke had to admit the truth. His carefully maintained casual friendship with Mara was a mere facade: a series of boards nailed down over a raging geyser of emotion so powerful that it would have frightened him long before he’d taken on the mantle of a jedi and learned how truly dangerous that level of passion could be.

His sleep and meditation were filled with nightmares of the vision, and then there were other dreams far too erotic to be called nightmares but no less disturbing in their own way.

He loved her. He had always loved her, and even if he could never tell her, he needed her to be okay. He needed Mara in his life however she wished to be.

He attempted to find calm amidst that realization, even though his heart skipped a beat when he found hot chocolate in the galley. If he loved her, the best thing he could do was be in tune with the Force. He needed to arrive alert and collected to help however he could.

It was in that state that he set the Fire into orbit around the planet Nirauan mere parsecs from the unknown regions and loaded Artoo into his X-Wing for the journey to the surface. He breathed deeply and tried to work through his instincts.

Those instincts led him to accept the help of the young Mynock-like creature who led him into underground tunnels much like those Mara had described. Artoo did not approve but came along anyway.

And the instincts had been right because he soon sensed Mara’s presence and could feel a small trickle of hope amid the dread he knew was still inside him.  
He knew they were getting closer as her presence grew stronger, and he relished the way she felt in the Force. He wondered if he’d ever really appreciated it before.

Finally, young Child of Winds led him around a corner and she was sitting on a flat rock waiting for him.

He stopped short and she smiled quizzically.

“What are you doing here, Skywalker?”

“Stars, you’re alright.” he whispered, and all the emotions he’d been holding in check flooded the few feet between them like a tsunami of gratitude and relief.

“Mara.” He murmured her name and he knew she could tell he’d feared never getting to speak to her again.

For a moment, she looked at him like she was certain his body had been taken over by someone else, but then she got to her feet and walked over to him. She placed her hands on his trembling shoulders, and when he framed her face with his hands and kissed her, she kissed him back without reservation.


End file.
